PURIM SPECIAL WITH RABBI JUDAH MISCHEL Mashpiah, OU-NCSY Executive Director, Camp HASC
Dedicated L'Iluy Nishmas HaChaver Shlomo Michael ben Meir z'l
Purim: Inner Light
T
o hear the great Tzadik, Reb Shalom Rockeach, Der Ershter Rov, the ‘First Rebbe’ of Belz (known also as the Sar Shalom zy’a), lein the Megillah was an unforgettably uplifting experience. When he was a young man, still an unknown budding student of the Chozeh of Lublin, he was called upon to read the Megillah in the Chozeh’s Beis Medrash of Lublin. Those assembled didn’t recognize the young scholar, but sensed that they experienced something special. At the completion of the leining, the Chozeh remarked: “The (Purim) story… I have heard many times, but I’ve never heard it told quite like this.”
MITZVAH LISHMAH Once on Purim night, Reb Elazar, the oldest of the Sar Shalom’s five sons, and Reb Yehoshua, his youngest brother, were stranded far from home. For the first time in their lives, they would miss out on Megillah reading with their illustrious 64
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father, which was replete with Kabbalistic intentions, in the spiritually-charged atmosphere of the Beis Medrash in Belz. Reb Elazar was deeply disappointed that they were stuck at a roadside inn hearing an ordinary balabus, a community member, read the Megillah. His younger brother, Reb Yehoshua, who would ultimately become the successor and next Rebbe of Belz, felt differently: “On the contrary, my dear brother. Each year we hear the Megillah from our righteous father and enjoy his other-worldly leining. With every word sweet as honey, I too am swept up by our father’s greatness, and my mind wanders from the story of Mordechai and Esther into the upper spheres of Divine perception. There is so much pleasure in it, but truthfully, I fear that my focus has not been on the basic details or the mitzvah of the Megillah, per se. This year, when we hear the Megillah, I will have no other motivation or kavannah than to hear the story, and fulfill the Mitzvah lishmah, for its own sake. And I will have to find new meanings and depths in it on my own!
A SPIRITUAL JOLT Megillas Esther describes how the Jews celebrated upon hearing of Haman’s
